I'll Show You Mine... If You Show Me Yours!

[BIAD]

Biloxi, MS? You were only 5 and a half hours southeast of where I live then...

I live in the UK... five and a half hours travel may not be much to you guys, but to a Limey, it could mean ending up
in the North sea!!

[Snarl]

Biloxi, MS? You were only 5 and a half hours southeast of where I live then...

I live in the UK... five and a half hours travel may not be much to you guys, but to a Limey, it could mean ending up
in the North sea!!

My first retirement happened in Hawaii ... and not on the Big Island.

[WonderCow]

https://youtu.be/3UP5eAOQuo8


 I grew up in the Cannock Chase area, which now seems to be paranomal central for the UK  for some reason. Anyhow, I spent many happy hours playing in this little wood when I was a child.

Oh... so you'll be familiar with Deborah Hatswell and her YouTube videos? DH links:

Is she the Lady that used to run the UK Wildman site? I used to look on there occasionally.

Anyhow, here's the thing....the Chase never had a paranormal reputation until the advent of the internet era.

If Manbearpig or whatever was running riot we'd have heard about it, as kids, I remember us all being scared witless by the Patterson Gimlin film on Leonard Nimoy's In Search Of.
If we'd thought there was a chance we'd run into something like that we'd have never played outdoors again.

The only scary stories the teenagers had to frighten us with were the Gaskin murder story, and legend had it that Mrs Gaskin wasn't buried in that wood anyway, and there were lurid tales of ghostly soldiers up by the German cemetary. Other than that, there wasn't anything to give us nightmares.

When all the paranormal stuff started coming out I looked into it and it turned out a local journalist had written a book about alleged weirdness there and most of the stories seemed to be originating from his site.  I guess the whole thing grew legs from there.

I spent most of my childhood wandering around on the Chase and adjacent areas and never encountered anything scarier than a bunny. I drove across there at night numerous times as a teen, only ever saw deer.

I think there's a very good chance there may be big cats up there, the terrain is perfect for them, and there's plenty of prey animals, but Bigfoot? Gimme a break.

[LSU2018]

Biloxi, MS? You were only 5 and a half hours southeast of where I live then...

I live in the UK... five and a half hours travel may not be much to you guys, but to a Limey, it could mean ending up
in the North sea!!

Lol, if I drove for 5 and half hours south, I'd end up in the Gulf of Mexico. But to get to Biloxi, I have to drive East into Mississippi and then south.

[Stoner William]

Biloxi, MS? You were only 5 and a half hours southeast of where I live then...

I live in the UK... five and a half hours travel may not be much to you guys, but to a Limey, it could mean ending up
in the North sea!!

Lol, if I drove for 5 and half hours south, I'd end up in the Gulf of Mexico. But to get to Biloxi, I have to drive East into Mississippi and then south.

In one area of  the north Scotland you can drive from the east Coast to the West coast in 60 miles ,sea to sea and mostly single track road 45 minutes for me going from scourie to golspie

[TheRedneck]

Good God... so many pics to choose from...

Northern Alabama here, but I'll have to get on the big machine to make a decent post. I'll get around to it, promise!

TheRedneck

[TheRedneck]

OK, as promised...

I live in the middle of what others pay good money to put pictures of on their walls... God's country as we like to call it. Northern Alabama. Here's a taste:



Lived here all my life... Dad built this house I live in when I was less than 2 years old. Nestled back in a hollow, the mountain behind it is my refuge and sanctuary, as well as the location of my shop. In my youth I spent days at a time living in it, with nothing but a knife. I am comfortable there. I know the critters and the plants better than most people know each other. I can disappear at will... you could walk within two feet of me and never know anyone is there. I would hear you, though... humans have a unique sound. I can tell most critters by sound if it's quiet... tracked a bobcat around my camp one night by sound so I could have him some snacks ready when he showed up. Shocked the friend that was with me; he never heard a thing.

Also turned out he was scared of bobcats. That was a fun experience...

And yes, we have moonshiners... not many any more, but there's still a few who keep the old ways going. Just be sure they know you when you drive into that hollow... cars have a tendency to develop big holes otherwise. Nice folk, but they do like their privacy.

Drive through my neck of the woods and you'll likely be listening to hear "Dueling Banjos" coming from the treeline while you're staring at Confederate flags (technically Confederate Battlejacks) still waving in the breeze from the few houses that dot the countryside. Yeah, they made the movie "Deliverance" not that far from me. Yeah, we remember the War of Northern Aggression... one lone structure stands that pre-dates it; everything else around here was destroyed. It's only a few minutes from me, as a matter of fact. I know the family who owns it.

But we're not just dumb hicks either:



NASA is here, NOAA is here, Boeing is here... We design everything from rockets to microprocessors. A great deal of the self-driving technology comes from here. Even out here at my home in the sticks, I have high-speed fiberoptic cable running to my home and several WiFi networks.

My latest project? I need a 3D printer, so I bought one. Problem is, I now need a place to put it. So I took a red oak tree that fell and traded a guy some cedar trees I want gone anyway for him sawing it into boards. I bought a planer, but I needed a table to set it up on. I made a table out of scrap lumber I had lying around  and set it up at my barn next to the lumber. I am planing boards as I can, and probably have enough ready now to make a table to go in my home office big enough to hold my 3D printer. All on my own, using my own hands and my own tools. Not counting tools, I might wind up having $20-$30 in a finished solid oak table that someone else couldn't buy for $500.

That's what I do: I make things I need and fix things others throw away. Even retired now, I do what I can do when I can do. I always will. It's what I do.

We're a mixture of the very old and the very new, living side by side in harmony. I'm as comfortable designing a circuit board for a new project no one had ever thought of before as I am siting on a rock in the middle of 1000 acres of trees watching the deer play. I know where I am going, but more importantly, I know where I came from.

TheRedneck

[Moonmagic]

OK, as promised...

I live in the middle of what others pay good money to put pictures of on their walls... God's country as we like to call it. Northern Alabama. Here's a taste:



Lived here all my life... Dad built this house I live in when I was less than 2 years old. Nestled back in a hollow, the mountain behind it is my refuge and sanctuary, as well as the location of my shop. In my youth I spent days at a time living in it, with nothing but a knife. I am comfortable there. I know the critters and the plants better than most people know each other. I can disappear at will... you could walk within two feet of me and never know anyone is there. I would hear you, though... humans have a unique sound. I can tell most critters by sound if it's quiet... tracked a bobcat around my camp one night by sound so I could have him some snacks ready when he showed up. Shocked the friend that was with me; he never heard a thing.

Also turned out he was scared of bobcats. That was a fun experience...

And yes, we have moonshiners... not many any more, but there's still a few who keep the old ways going. Just be sure they know you when you drive into that hollow... cars have a tendency to develop big holes otherwise. Nice folk, but they do like their privacy.

Drive through my neck of the woods and you'll likely be listening to hear "Dueling Banjos" coming from the treeline while you're staring at Confederate flags (technically Confederate Battlejacks) still waving in the breeze from the few houses that dot the countryside. Yeah, they made the movie "Deliverance" not that far from me. Yeah, we remember the War of Northern Aggression... one lone structure stands that pre-dates it; everything else around here was destroyed. It's only a few minutes from me, as a matter of fact. I know the family who owns it.

But we're not just dumb hicks either:



NASA is here, NOAA is here, Boeing is here... We design everything from rockets to microprocessors. A great deal of the self-driving technology comes from here. Even out here at my home in the sticks, I have high-speed fiberoptic cable running to my home and several WiFi networks.

My latest project? I need a 3D printer, so I bought one. Problem is, I now need a place to put it. So I took a red oak tree that fell and traded a guy some cedar trees I want gone anyway for him sawing it into boards. I bought a planer, but I needed a table to set it up on. I made a table out of scrap lumber I had lying around  and set it up at my barn next to the lumber. I am planing boards as I can, and probably have enough ready now to make a table to go in my home office big enough to hold my 3D printer. All on my own, using my own hands and my own tools. Not counting tools, I might wind up having $20-$30 in a finished solid oak table that someone else couldn't buy for $500.

That's what I do: I make things I need and fix things others throw away. Even retired now, I do what I can do when I can do. I always will. It's what I do.

We're a mixture of the very old and the very new, living side by side in harmony. I'm as comfortable designing a circuit board for a new project no one had ever thought of before as I am siting on a rock in the middle of 1000 acres of trees watching the deer play. I know where I am going, but more importantly, I know where I came from.

TheRedneck

I did not picture Alabama looking like that, beautiful! One thing I always loved about America, how vast, different and beautiful the whole country is from end to end! I would give anything to travel the whole 50 states one day!

[TheRedneck]

I did not picture Alabama looking like that, beautiful! One thing I always loved about America, how vast, different and beautiful the whole country is from end to end! I would give anything to travel the whole 50 states one day!

I pretty much got that opportunity as a truck driver. I missed a lot of the touristy attractions, but I also got to see the real side of different places. By all rights, the USA should be something like 16 different countries.... there's that much variation! Not only in appearance, but in culture.

I'm in the toenails of the foothills of the Great Appalachian Chain. Farther south, it becomes rolling hills until near the coast everything is pretty much flat.

TheRedneck

[Moonmagic]

I did not picture Alabama looking like that, beautiful! One thing I always loved about America, how vast, different and beautiful the whole country is from end to end! I would give anything to travel the whole 50 states one day!

I pretty much got that opportunity as a truck driver. I missed a lot of the touristy attractions, but I also got to see the real side of different places. By all rights, the USA should be something like 16 different countries.... there's that much variation! Not only in appearance, but in culture.

I'm in the toenails of the foothills of the Great Appalachian Chain. Farther south, it becomes rolling hills until near the coast everything is pretty much flat.

TheRedneck

I think a lot of folk miss that aspect when talking about ''Americans'' the place is so damn big it's like Europe, and we wouldn't call the French the same as the British etc etc

I think my Country is Beautiful, but it does not have the diversity of the USA, it's just an island after all. I definitely envy you there Redneck!

[DaphneApollo]

I'm from Mississippi, in America.  Deep south, hot and humid in the summer.  I'm 2hrs, as the crow flies, from the Gulf Coast and go all the time. 

Video on MS



Gulf coast:

[Moonmagic]

I'm from Mississippi, in America.  Deep south, hot and humid in the summer.  I'm 2hrs, as the crow flies, from the Gulf Coast and go all the time. 

Video on MS



Gulf coast:

Beautiful Daphne!